This past week we have received our first few Grower Degree Days along with all the sunshine and wind here in Illinois.

As nightly lows start to warm up, we should start seeing GDD increase quickly. One of the first events you should start to see are silver maples beginning to flower (~34-40 GDD). In our fields, we have already started seeing them flowering.

We are seeing more species of trees have bud swell in our fields and some of the early perennials are starting to pop up in our hoop houses. The warmer sun causes the buds to begin to swell or break, and nurseries will begin to dig more spring orders. Check out our featured article below about spring dig windows.